


you might just find you get what you need

by aphrodite_mine



Category: Bandits (1997)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-03
Updated: 2015-10-03
Packaged: 2018-04-24 15:04:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4924177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aphrodite_mine/pseuds/aphrodite_mine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>"This is a million times better than prison," Angel sighs.</i> (Slow burn Emma/Luna, post-canon.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	you might just find you get what you need

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SadieFlood](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SadieFlood/gifts).



> TW: nausea.

There's nothing out of their porthole but water and sky, sky and water. Emma finds it soothing. Luna can tell by the way she settles her shoulders, stretches her neck. Emma is looser, looking at the sea. She's as liquid as what they're sailing in, never seeming to lose her balance or her step. She keeps a hand (unannounced) at Luna's back when they walk the halls, and if she didn't feel so fucking sick, Luna would find it annoying or frustrating or comforting or actually a little bit wonderful. 

*

"This is a million times better than prison," Angel sighs, leaning heavy into the doorframe and smiling before Emma leaps to her feet to pull the door shut behind her. Emma makes frantic shushing noises, but Angel just laughs. "They're not going to come after us now, we're safe. Safe as apartments."

"Safe as houses," Luna supplies from her bunk, her eyes shut against the gentle rocking of the cruise ship. 

"If you think we're safe, Angel, you're a fool." Emma knocks the back of her head against the door, just once, in frustration. "We've only been gone a week, perfect time for the police to get their act together. Connect the dots." It's her way of caring for them, Luna thinks. Worry and fussing. She would have made a good mother.

"Safer than we were, then." Angel seems satisfied with this conclusion, picking her way through their small cabin to climb up into her bunk. She's as dignified as the task allows. "I like the ship! So many people, and we get to play music, and isn't that what we wanted?" She kicks her feet in the empty air. Blissful, practically.

It's Luna's job to grumble, then, "Easier to escape from prison than an ocean liner." Not that it does anything to spoil Angel's good mood. But Emma smiles, once, quick.

*

The only time the nausea seems to abate is on stage. Emma says it has to do with focus -- instead of thinking about the contents of her stomach, Luna has to think about the next chord, and not sounding like shit on the mic. Mind over matter. Luna thinks this is bullshit, but gets through set after set without rushing to the bathroom to curl around the toilet. 

The toilet flushes backwards, now. 

They sign a contract with Harry for six months; forever and no time. He isn't a friend, exactly, but he gets them what they need. Room and board and a way out, all in exchange for two performances a night and a (relatively) low profile. He has a well-stocked dressing room, and instruments that, for the most part, function as they're supposed to. The message is clear enough: you weren't the first, and you probably won't be the last.

But it is a situation that works for everyone, in the meantime.

"Angel and the Banshees," the announcer cues them, night after night, with waning enthusiasm. "Bandits," Luna reminds herself before clutching at the microphone.

"Saw her today at the reception," she purrs, accompanied only by a blue light and her own picked chords. "A glass of wine in her hand."

The stage is in one of the lower decks, a room filled with smoke and boozy regulars and thin applause. Emma comes in, and then Angel, with the rift. Luna can hear the keyboard in her head, she thinks Marie would have liked this gig.

The three of them drink to come down after, Angel draping herself over the bar, and Luna falling prey once again to that place between two beers and three where she forgets to feel the way the boat moves under her. It catches her surprise, then, after, when the sickness rolls back.

She notes, more and more, that Emma's always there to catch her.

*

"I thought of another reason!" Angel crows. "The food here is tip top." She's brought along a plate of turkey and gravy for illustration, taking far too much pleasure from waving it under Luna's nose. Luna, who just groans and curls up tighter on her bottom bunk. She's been far too nauseous for far too long to worry about how this looks. ( _Pathetic_ , she thinks anyway.)

They've started to collect things. Souvenirs, little gifts that Angel cons out of guests. Cons into thinking they aren't being conned. Dresses, pinned to the walls like tapestries, and pieces they've been too lazy to return to the dressing room. Angel's bass. A tamborine. 

Emma has claimed a fold-out cot amongst the mess, currently folded in. "You need to puke, you do it in the toilet, Nabiba. I'm not cleaning up after you again."

"I'm fine," Luna groans. "Get out of my face, you asshole." The words don't sound nearly as threatening as she means them to.

Angel makes exaggerated noises of pleasure, holds the fork between her lips. "Bet it even tastes good coming back up."

Luna answers with a middle finger. Two. Really drives the point home.

*

That night, Angel doesn't come back to their cabin, and the pressure behind Luna's eyes won't abate. "Christ," Emma growls from her cot, "Stop moaning, won't you?"

"Keep the damn boat from rocking, and I'd be happy to." Luna flashes a pained grin into the darkness between them, dares moving to try and rub at her forehead, but is startled instead by Emma's quick movement across the small room.

"Scoot over." Her voice is gruff. "I'll hold you steady. I've just gotten this place not smelling like your vomit."

Luna's too miserable by half to argue, though she feels like she should. She's not a baby, even if being sick makes her feel like one. It would be too much to admit that this helps, that her stomach has finally stopped rolling with Emma's palm on one side, her own stomach pressing against Luna's back. Warm, like a heating pad. 

Emma probably knows, anyway. Gloating inside. She knows everything.

*

Luna wakes up around four in the afternoon (hard to keep track of time on a moving object), the most rested she's been for a week now. Even the pre-show rush doesn't activate discomfort. Emma is quiet, like she knows the tension between them will crack if she speaks. 

An hour, and Angel still doesn't show. "We go on in twenty, Emma, please tell me you know where the fuck Angel has fucked off to."

Emma is, frustratingly, unruffled. "Difficult to lose someone on a cruise ship."

They regroup backstage, and Luna starts pacing, hitting the wall with a closed fist, counting down. And then, Angel appears. She is disheveled and glowing. "Reason number three," she purrs, pausing to crouch and reapply lipstick in the reflection of Emma's base drum. "Men. Cute ones, too. Which I'd imagine you would know already, if you were interested." This, accompanied by a raised eyebrow, but Angel isn't one to waste time on meaningful looks. "Ready to go?" She pops up, grabs her bass. "What's the hold up?"

*

They perform without any hiccups (or punches), and after the set, Angel slips off again. "Got to be more careful! If my boys discover one another, I'll be khhht--" she gestures across her neck, crosses her eyes, and grins.

Emma and Luna decide drink a little without her, Luna cradling her guitar where they sit in a hazy corner. She picks out chords, strumming quietly. "It's been a week. Think my sea legs will kick in any time soon?"

Emma smiles behind her beer bottle. "I'll be here until they do."

A minor, E minor, G, C. "Just til then?"

**Author's Note:**

> What a pleasure to write this pairing for you! The song that Luna is singing in the third section is "Can't Always Get What You Want" by the Rolling Stones. I found [this stripped-down cover](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kJ7VLNPiUs), which I imagine is more how the Bandits perform it. Maybe jumping in halfway with the bass and the drums. That song is also the source of the title.


End file.
